An "inner quantifier" indicates number of members in the group (which is the subject of the predication), whereas an "outer quantifier" indicates a portion of that number, so "lecinanmu" would mean "the three men" whereas "cilenanmu" would mean "three of the men", "cilemunanmu" would mean "three of the five men"; so, as a rough analogy, le could be said to act as a divider (whereas lo acts as a multiplier, according to the xorlo proposal).

English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

Though le is usually the indirect object form of the direct object pronouns lo/la, it is often used as a direct object as well...e.g., «yo le amo» (I love him). This phenomenon is known as leísmo.

Note that when a sentence contains a noun that is an indirect object, a redundant indirect object le (or its plural form les) is also required; for example «yo le daré el libro a Jorge» (literally, "I him will give the book to Jorge"), where him/le corresponds to Jorge. This type of pronoun is obligatory. Both of the object pronouns le and les become se when followed by the direct object lo/la/los/las; hence, «yo se lo daré» (I will give it to him/her/them) rather than «yo le/les lo daré».